We are Texans

About Us

Just Liberty is a bipartisan 501c(4) organization dedicated to comprehensive criminal justice reform in Texas, from the traffic stop to the local county jail, the courtroom, prisons, parole, and the reentry process.

At Just Liberty, we believe Texas incarcerates too many people and too often deploys police and jails to combat social problems instead of protecting crime victims. We want a criminal justice system which protects families instead of disrupting them, treats everyone fairly, rewards personal responsibility, and promotes liberty, justice, and respect for human dignity.

There’s hardly an area of the justice system where immediate reform isn’t needed. Police collect millions from drivers under asset forfeiture laws, arrest people for as little as a seat belt violation, and sometimes shoot people when they shouldn’t. Forensic labs too often base findings on junk science. Judges fail in their roles as gatekeepers and defenders of the Constitution. Our jails are full of presumed-innocent people too poor to make bail. Our prisons house low-risk drug offenders who need treatment, not incarceration, to cure their addiction. Public safety pensions threaten to bankrupt the largest Texas cities.

Police, sheriffs, constables, justices of the peace, judges, district and county attorneys, probation and parole officers, prisons, jails, and the respective unions and industry organizations that support them all represent a massive, self-justifying constituency. These taxpayer-funded players have a self-interest in growing the system and their own power within it.

Catering to these special interests won’t solve our real problems. Texas can’t solve the state’s mental health crisis by deploying more cops to arrest the mentally ill, or building more prisons to house them. We won’t improve transportation infrastructure by handing out more traffic tickets. Our schools won’t get better because we arrest and jail more students. And incarcerating ever-more poor people won’t reduce poverty or provide incentives for employment and economic growth.
We hope you’ll join us today in our fight for a better Texas. Together, there’s no limit to what we can accomplish.

Our Team

Scott Henson is a leading researcher and writer on Texas criminal justice topics, and combines